I’m an author, journalist and one of the UK’s social media pioneers. Here I write about publishing, self-publishing and crowdfunding.
I am also the author of Argleton, a novelette about a mysterious town that appears on digital maps but doesn’t exist in reality. I self-published via Kickstarter and Amazon Kindle, and am negotiating my way through the publishing world and exploring new business models for entrepreneurial authors along the way.
As a freelance journalist, I have written about social media and technology for FirstPost.com, The Guardian, CIO Magazine and Computer Weekly.

Million Dollar Book Proves Kickstarter Model, Now Authors Just Need The Reach

The Order of the Stick Reprint Drive became the first book project on Kickstarter to cross the million dollar mark last night. Currently sitting at $1,072,528 raised from 12,797 backers and with 23 hours to go, comic book artist Rich Burlew has now put all other crowdfunded comics and publishing projects in the shade by one or two orders of magnitude. The question that authors and artists are now asking themselves is, how?

Kickstarter has unarguably proven its worth as a business model for creatives, with two other projects also breaking the million dollar barrier over the last fortnight. The Elevation Dock, an innovative dock for iPhones, raised$1,464,706 from 12,521 backers. And Double Fine Adventure, a video game project from Double Fine and 2 Player Productions, today passed the $2 million mark with more than 60,000 supporters and 22 days to go. It seems reasonable to think that it could raise $4 million or more in total.

So sceptics should put aside their cynicism: Kickstarter, and sites like it, are now incontrovertibly capable of funding a diverse array of creative projects at very high levels. As an author, it’s exciting to see Kickstarter raising money at a level that competes with some of the biggest advances that you’ll see on offer from traditional publishing. Those advances are usually reserved for celebrities or established best-sellers, but Kickstarter now brings that sort of funding within reach of almost everyone.

Rich Burlew's OOTS has a big following

The devil is in the details, however, and Burlew’s project provides some interesting insight into where the challenges lie for anyone wanting to replicate his success.

The most important thing, I would argue, is that Burlew has a huge fanbase. He’s drawn the Order of the Stick (OOTS) comic strip for the last nine years, producing over 800 strips in the process. He’s already got a number of books in his back catalogue that he wants to get back into print, and his fans very clearly want that too. He has lot of people who are not just willing to stump up their own money, they are also very happy to spread the word outside of their own community.

In short, Burlew has reach.

In the case of the Elevator Dock, that reach came via the media with coverage from Wired, the New York Times, Gizmodo, SlashGear, TNW, GigaOM and many, many others. And for Double Fine, again, it’s a matter of having been around since 2000, producing a critically acclaimed game, Psychonauts, and picking up a slew of loyal fans along the way.

There’s also a sense of adventure with these projects. They aimed high. Burlew asked for $57,750, the Elevation Dock goal was $75,000, and Double Fine hoped for $400,000.

Looking at the fiction section of Kickstarter, few ask for those kinds of sums. In fact, when I looked at a selection of the most recent successful fiction projects, the average requested was $3,000, and the average raised was $3,600. Modest, yes. And doable, certainly. But not ambitious.

I think that’s because authors and small publishers don’t have communities big enough to support more substantial book publication projects. I know I don’t. My next Kickstarter project is likely to ask for $5,000 with the hope that I overfund a bit. If my success rate is 1 percent (equivalent to a direct mail campaign), and let’s say I need 150 backers, then I need to reach 15,000 people, which is about doable given my network.

Social media, of course, makes reaching that many people technically simpler but it certainly doesn’t make it quick or easy. Indeed, when I look at my author friends on Twitter, I’m struck by how few followers many of them have, even the ones with critically acclaimed books on the shelves. The few exceptions are already best sellers and their fans simply migrate to wherever they can gain access to their favourite writers.

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“But to really explore the opportunities that authors have in this online, networked, social world of ours, we have to rethink the very basic. It’s not enough to write good stories. You need to manage a mailing list of fans, be on Twitter and/or Facebook, have a blog, and be willing to put in the hard graft required to build an audience.”

Except that Rich Burlew, your primary example, doesn’t have a mailing list of fans, isn’t on Twitter, isn’t on Facebook (although a fan started running a page for Order of the Stick there), and doesn’t really have a blog (giantitp.com has a News feed, but at best, it averages one post a month, and sometimes goes quiet for four months at a time.) He certainly did build an audience through hard work, though.

Rich Burlew has been building his community for nine years and when he started out Twitter and Facebook didn’t exist. Twitter launched in 2006, Facebook launched in 2004 but didn’t open to the public until 2006, so his readership predates the key social tools currently in use and people tend to stick with what they know.

That doesn’t invalidate the advice. For people currently working to build a fanbase, social tools are really important as they allow the people in your network to easily pass on links and recommendations to their friends, and their friends’ friends.

Absolutely! Although I’d add that for authors without a community at the moment, those four tools are probably easy places to start. Forums really only work when you already have a critical mass of readers and there’s nothing more off-putting than an empty forum. On the other hand a small newsletter-style mailing list looks exactly the same as a big one, and a rarely-read blog looks pretty similar to a widely trafficked one, except for comments and they don’t matter if your content’s good.

Malcolm, I had a quick look at your project, and my advice would be to revisit your reward levels. They are a bit confusing, and there’s very little of real value to the supporter in the lower price ranges, and none of them seem to include the film!

Remember that most people like to pledge under $50, but they want more than a thank you card and a credit. There are loads of rewards you could do: digital download of the film, HD digital download, DVD, wallpapers for your computer, book and ebook of art from the film, etc. etc.

Rich Burlew gave people something that they really wanted – copies of his main products (the comic in book form) either digitally or in print, and then a bunch of other goodies that they can’t get elsewhere. What are you giving your supporters that they really, really want?

If you look closely, you can see an example of precisely how Burlew looks after his fans – his 26 updates and continual tweaking of the Kickstarter reward levels exemplifies audience engagement, even within the Kickstarter framework.

Yes, absolutely. I actually think that his engagement with his audience on Kickstarter is almost more important than the continual tweaking of reward levels. That said, the way that he continually gives people a reason to increase their reward level has almost certainly contributed to his success. He’s been particularly smart with the use of digital rewards, giving people more and more digital stuff as the project goes on.

An excellent, article that highlights the reality of doing Kickstarter. Author’s have to extend their reach and build their networks much more to find success like this. I think it will gradually become easier and help comics a lot.

Very good article, yes authors needs a good fanbase and community. This should be a good example that you can earn money without big publishers. (Also a warning to “old media”) Internet is so big, there can be really bad content but there are people like Rich and i’m really happy to see their success. As a fan of order of the stick it is also good to know that Rich saw the power of his art. He will continue to create good stuff and we will continue to watch him.